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Oil Shale

Explorer Regions and Sections

Celebrate the spirit of exploration at this year’s AAPG Rocky Mountain Section meeting, set June 11-13 in Billings, Mont. The hosts will be the Montana Geological Society.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Tim Cejka, president of ExxonMobil Exploration and vice president of Exxon Mobil Corp., heads the list of speakers who will be featured at four ticketed luncheons during the AAPG Annual Convention in Houston.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Emphasis Article

Prices are up, but sdIOCs are staring smack in the face of what Scott Tinker refers to as a significant 'trilemma.'

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

A sign of the times: The annual NAPE gathering in Houston was HUGE.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Policy Watch

AAPG opens an office in Washington, D.C. and this month the EXPLORER invites its director to speak ... often ... in the Washington Watch.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

The Energy Minerals Division is excited to present its technical program and activities for the upcoming AAPG Annual Convention in Houston April 9-12. EMD has a very attractive program and both EMD and AAPG members will be treated to a variety of technical sessions, short courses and a lignite field trip.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Director’s Corner

AAPG has a history of providing good professional education to its members. This has been an important AAPG service, but now we are at a crossroads as a provider.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

Let's make a deal: Summer in Houston is about to get even hotter thanks to the Summer NAPE, a prospects and properties expo that carries the AAPG banner.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Article

'New Tracks to New Highs' is the theme of the 2005 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, to be held in Paris, France, on Sept. 11-14.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
Explorer Division Column EMD

Oil sands consist of bitumen (soluble organic matter) and host sediment with associated minerals, excluding any related natural gas. Most of the oil sand deposits in the world are found in Venezuela and Canada.

American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)
VG Abstract

Production from unconventional petroleum reservoirs includes petroleum from shale, coal, tight-sand and oil-sand. These reservoirs contain enormous quantities of oil and natural gas but pose a technology challenge to both geoscientists and engineers to produce economically on a commercial scale. These reservoirs store large volumes and are widely distributed at different stratigraphic levels and basin types, offering long-term potential for energy supply. Most of these reservoirs are low permeability and porosity that need enhancement with hydraulic fracture stimulation to maximize fluid drainage. Production from these reservoirs is increasing with continued advancement in geological characterization techniques and technology for well drilling, logging, and completion with drainage enhancement. Currently, Australia, Argentina, Canada, Egypt, USA, and Venezuela are producing natural gas from low permeability reservoirs: tight-sand, shale, and coal (CBM). Canada, Russia, USA, and Venezuela are producing heavy oil from oilsand. USA is leading the development of techniques for exploring, and technology for exploiting unconventional gas resources, which can help to develop potential gas-bearing shales of Thailand. The main focus is on source-reservoir-seal shale petroleum plays. In these tight rocks petroleum resides in the micro-pores as well as adsorbed on and in the organics. Shale has very low matrix permeability (nano-darcies) and has highly layered formations with differences in vertical and horizontal properties, vertically non-homogeneous and horizontally anisotropic with complicate natural fractures. Understanding the rocks is critical in selecting fluid drainage enhancement mechanisms; rock properties such as where shale is clay or silica rich, clay types and maturation , kerogen type and maturation, permeability, porosity, and saturation. Most of these plays require horizontal development with large numbers of wells that require an understanding of formation structure, setting and reservoir character and its lateral extension. The quality of shale-gas resources depend on thickness of net pay (>100 m), adequate porosity (>2%), high reservoir pressure (ideally overpressure), high thermal maturity (>1.5% Ro), high organic richness (>2% TOC), low in clay (<50%), high in brittle minerals (quartz, carbonates, feldspars), and favourable in-situ stress. During the past decade, unconventional shale and tight-sand gas plays have become an important supply of natural gas in the US, and now in shale oil as well. As a consequence, interest to assess and explore these plays is rapidly spreading worldwide. The high production potential of shale petroleum resources has contributed to a comparably favourable outlook for increased future petroleum supplies globally. Application of 2D and 3D seismic for defining reservoirs and micro seismic for monitoring fracturing, measuring rock properties downhole (borehole imaging) and in laboratory (mineralogy, porosity, permeability), horizontal drilling (downhole GPS), and hydraulic fracture stimulation (cross-linked gel, slick-water, nitrogen or nitrogen foam) is key in improving production from these huge resources with low productivity factors.

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